Alice's Restaurant Massacree Doesn't Live Here Anymore

 

The name of Alice has a recurring association with restaurants, in a song, in (unrelated) movies,  and in the TV series of the same name (based on the Martin Scorsese movie). During the original run of the show, I was aware of it, but only viewed it a few times. In 1975 or 76, 1977, for example, the show would not have formed part of my gestalt. Rather than watch  television, I might have been ranging in the deep forests and creeks of the area where I then lived, in the midst of the Boring Lava Buttes. I could have been occupied reading comic books, or books.  I might have been on family trips, to California, Nevada, eastern Oregon, Idaho, Montana.  I had also started on some initial creative projects, including collages, and a bit later, writing. The world of waitresses in old school utilitarian uniforms, humor, drama, failed romance and jokes based on the bad quality of Mel’s cooking, would not have drawn me in. The signals from the broadcasts remained unseen, passing the atmosphere, and drifting into the outer spaces.

The show was threaded with light (if often repetitive) humor, guest spots by celebrities such as Martha Raye, Joel Grey, Telly Savalas, and Robert Goulet, and topical references which would have hit the spot in their day. I’ve written elsewhere of how my family often brought up the sudden death of Frank Sutton (who played Sergeant Vince Carter, on Gomer Pyle). Vic Tayback, as his diner-owner character Mel Sharples,  even eerily foreshadowed his own relatively early passage, on one episode. There is a cluster of premature, or tragic deaths with the series (including Tayback, Philip McKeon, and Charles Levin). – JF, 9/2022

The Mystery of Frank Tayback; digital collage by JF, September 2022

Summer of The Prisoner

It was the summer of 1977 when the local public broadcasting station played the British series The Prisoner, starring Patrick McGoohan. My father had seen the show previously, in the late 1960s, and introduced the show to me. I then told my friends Jeff and Roman about it. I remember Jeff and I walking to the neighborhood store, frenziedly debating the identify of Number One. Roman and I heavily tapped the show's audio component, recording, cutting-up, and re-mixing the music, sounds, and dialogue of the series, as part of homemade sonic experiments. We produced a number of mixes on cassette tapes, few, if any of which have survived the years. We discussed various character actors appearing in The Prisoner, such as Angelo Muscat and Leo McKern, and the elements of different episodes: Living in Harmony, The Schizoid Man, and so on. Roman and I even adopted the farewell phrase "Be seeing you" for a time. The embedded strangeness, excitement, and momentum of the broadcast had a great influence on me.

The Devil's Messenger

Last night I watched a DVD someone sent me years ago, of The Devil's Messenger, a three-part anthology with Lon Chaney, Jr, (directed by Curt Siodmak and Herbert L. Strock, and based on a Swedish TV series), who gestured palm-up, leered plaintively, engaged his eyebrows, and searched a Rolodex, as he played Old Scratch. I expected some execrable throwaway movie, based on the lurid DVD cover, but found myself engaged by the stark acting and sets, and effective supernatural concepts. The production felt like a sort of bridge between film noir, and the TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, and The Outer Limits. The ending was exceptionally odd.

Lon Chaney, Jr., has no grave. 

The Devil's Messenger (1961)

image © 2003 Alpha Video

Some Thoughts on David Letterman

The recent announcement of David Letterman's impending retreat called up memories of his show in the 1980s, when he, or his producers, or both, danced with danger and invited guests who included Allen Ginsberg, Harvey Pekar (the comics writer, whom Letterman didn't exactly flatter), Brother Theodore, and hilarious non sequiturs by the likes of Chris Elliott, Crispin Glover, and Calvin DeForest.  Mostly, this atmosphere evaporated with the passage of years.

Collage by Jonathan Falk

Green Room